Of Slugs and Cheesecake March 3, 2010

I’ve been a complete slug.

There I’ve admitted it. I know I promised to get back on track with blogging and I promised reviews, my favorite exercises etc and I have done none of that. So what have I been doing the last week or so? Good question, the answer I’ve been in a complete funk. I have no excuse, it could be the weather, that time of the year late winter, I really need a vacation, blues or just who knows. I just haven’t felt like doing anything. What I do know is that the only person that can get me out of this is me. I need to pull my head out of my ass and just get to work, set some goals and get moving again.

I’ve been studying, sort of, for my American College of Exercise (ACE) Lifestyle and Weight Management Consulting certification. I need it because my personal training cert needs to be renewed and I need the continuing ed credits. During my reading on bio-mechanical principles the book went into Newton’s 3 laws of motion. The first being the law of INERTIA, which states that a body at rest will stay at rest and a body in motion will stay in motion UNLESS acted upon by external forces. Now external forces doesn’t necessarily have to be another person such as hiring a personal trainer to kick your butt. We can be our own external force. What I mean is we can make a conscious decision to do something to get moving.

Basically for the last couple of weeks I feel like I’ve been in a state of inertia. This is a common phenomenon for people attempting to make lifestyle changes. You start of full of energy and enthusiasm, start to feel good, start to see some progress and then all of the sudden the novelty wears off and it can become a grind. You start to question why you are putting yourself through this. You start to rationalize not working out or relaxing on your nutrition plan a little. You haven’t slipped back into old ways, you’re still holding on but you’re stuck.

The danger with being in this state is it’s easier to slide back into old bad habits than it is to keep moving forward and developing good habits. For me, the issue of not training, isn’t an issue. I may not train as hard as I should, or I may go from 4 training sessions a week to 3 but I can usually get myself going because I have been training for so long that I know that I’ll feel worse if I don’t go.

Nutrition on the other hand is where I can really start to slip, and as I’ve mentioned before Nutrition is 100% of the equation. You cannot out train a bad diet and for me where I have so little to lose, I don’t have a lot of wiggle room.

As I’ve mentioned I’ve been craving chocolate, the cravings have been coming and going and this weekend I just felt I need a real break. Not a I’ll have a cookie break, but a real full meal with desert diet break. My thinking was, eat it, get it out of my system and get right back on track the next day.

Now that didn’t mean I went and pigged out all day on Sunday but I did have a controlled cheat DAY not just a meal but a day. Saturday is normally cheat meal. I was home by myself as my husband was away, so I ordered a small pizza and a salad. I had 2 slices of pizza and ½ the salad. On Sunday I had 2 more slices of pizza and the rest of the salad and then Sunday night, I met a friend for dinner. We went to Rock Bottom Brewery where I had a turkey burger, with French fries and then we split a piece of chocolate stout cheesecake (the picture below is not from Rock Bottom)  Believe it or not I didn’t have any beer.  For me, I really don’t care about alcohol, I’d rather have desert.

YUM CHEESECAKE: CHOCOLATE CHEESECAKE

Can I tell you how good that cheesecake was. OMG It was exactly what I needed. Because it had been so long since I’ve eaten anything like that, it tasted even more amazing. It made me really appreciate the fact that I haven’t been eating that type of food, because now when I do, I just appreciated it so much more.

Did I feel guilty for eating what I did on Sunday?. No, because I had decided before hand that I was going to and I knew that I would get right back on track on Monday. For me it was like a little vacation and it was enough to get me refocused. The point of all of this, is that sometimes, you just need a break, we need to do something different to get us going again. It doesn’t need to be anything huge, like going on an exotic vacation; it could just be going out for dinner and allowing yourself to eat something not on the plan. It could be instead of going to the gym, getting out to a park and taking a hike. Just something different to break things up and help you refocus. However, just be careful that you get right back on track, that the one meal cheat doesn’t turn into days or weeks. So with that, hopefully I’m back on track.

Until next time

Be well, train hard

Michelle